Kitchen Garden Forum

I walked across my lawn barefooted to where my gooseberry bushes are to pick some for tea. I was very careful as I trod around the bushes thinking it was a little foolhardy not to be wearing any shoes. As I placed my left foot down I felt some very sharp prickles and thought I had trod on some gooseberry branches but no, as I looked down I had lightly stepped on a baby hedgehog. It stayed very still and I thought I may have injured it but it suddenly started walking for cover under some rhubarb and seemed perfectly well. I'm now glad I was not wearing my usual gardening clod -hoppers and I expect the hedgehog was also.

Barney

you old softie Barney.

It is some time since I've seen a hedgehog of any size. they sadly seem to be a disappearing species round here although I do occasionally see one of them squashed on a country lane I also occasionally find a tiny black turd on our lawn which may have been left by a hedgehog but not being a late night creature I rarely see one out and about. Could do with some regular visitosr as those horrid big brown slugs seem to be proliferating.

So glad the little hedgehog is ok....we've not seen one here for years..not even squashed ones

Unfortunately I found him this afternoon, dead.
My big foot must have caused a serious injury to him. There must be others around as I often see fully grown ones in the garden so I will have to be more careful where I walk.

It hasn't been a good time for me and local wildlife lately. When I was hay making I saw numerous large foxes in the fields and after the bales were cleared off the field I went back to see if there were any cubs that often appear in the evening but didn't see any. I mentioned it to my son who casually informed me that he had let his friend shoot the rabbits and that he also shot 3 foxes, I was not impressed. I know they have to be controlled but in my view they were keeping the abundant rabbit population down and no one keeps fowls in the area. Still I can't say much as use to ride to hounds and keep working terriers when I was young and the lad who shot them helped shift and stack all the bales a job that I no longer can manage. I will just have to spend some time on the old sedge peat moors where there is an abundance of wildlife especially birds to watch.

Barney

That is sad about the baby hedgehog. The preservation of various species, or not, is always a difficult one and it's difficult to know where to strike a balance for conservation of the species, or preservation of crops, etc. it's always easy to try and claim the moral high ground, but if your chickens are continually killed by foxes, you will be glad to see them culled. If on the other hand you are a crop farmer growing vegetables, you will probably be happy to let the foxes live so they can kill the rabbits who are eating your crops. There is no right answer, is there?

Dear Primrose, the balance has swung one way or the for centuries, and i suppose it will carry on like that in our lifetimes.

Unless Barney isn't a little more careful, of course.

How sad about the baby hedgehog, because there seem to be so few about nowadays. Even a few years ago, one would forever encounter hedgehog corpses on the road (or 'deadgehog' as our children used to call them) but I have not seen a single one recently. We did have a live one in the garden the other evening which was the first sighting for a long time. Years ago whole hedgehog families were regular visitors to the garden. I don't thnik there has been any major change to the landscape around here, certainly not for the worse. Our local nature reserve has grown into a wild and wonderful oasis for all kinds of wildlife, so it's strange how some species have declined so drastically. Is it really human intervention? Or does nature always work in cycles?

On the 'deadgehog' theme: dead cats on the road were called "gut-spilt splatterpuss" and dead rabbits "Rab - rems of" (like"Castle - rems of"). Sorry to digress.

I am glad your foot was ok anyway, Barney!

There was a baby hedgehog in a border where i was working today, so very pleased.

Then i just looked out of south wing window, and out on the road was s dead hedgehog. It wasn't there about fifteen minutes ago, so i don't know what idiot knoked it over. Although i could see anything wrong with it, apart from it was dead, so not pleased.

It's a shame about the baby hedgehog. The only ones I really see these days are dead in the road. It's a real shame.